Here’s a bold statement. Every seizure patient should be given the chance to regulate his own brain – and not be completely reliant on seizure medication. Medical professionals unfamiliar with neurofeedback perhaps may object.
But health professionals who have used it – including several thousand RN’s, psychologists, and MDs — recognize the power of using brain training to help the individual become more stable. Increased stability is reported to correlate with decreased seizures. Often, therapists report that the MD helps reduce seizure meds after they see the increased stability of a client.
Seizures are primarily a brain that loses its stability. Because there are 18 good studies showing the effectiveness of neurofeedback in reducing seizures, everyone should be given the chance to train. They aren’t – because they aren’t told about it by the health profession who are primarily unaware of it. It’s still considered new, though it’s been a around a while.
Dramatic reduction in seizures
A case recently in our center involves a woman with uncontrolled seizures over the last 12 years. She’s being seen by a top neurologist at the University of Miami and was on a lot of medications. That resulted in ongoing side effects for her.
After training with neurofeedback and helping counsel her on some other life changes, she has been seizure free for 3 months. This is pretty much unheard of in neurology. She twice reduced her medications while eliminating (so far) her seizures. All occurred after she started training with neurofeedback.
Virtually no neurologists are familiar with this technology and they don’t even tell patients about its existence. The key reason is low reimbursement. In the early 1990’s, biofeedback reimbursements were cut by 75% by Medicare and other insurance providers. Most MDs dropped most biofeedback at that time. They’ve never become unaware of the advances in the field since, which are significant. .
Since most MD’s aren’t aware of neurofeedback, they assume it must not be significant.
In fact, it’s an amazing innovation for seizure patients. But changing MDs minds are hard. .
If you know a seizure patient who is interested in neurofeedback, we strongly suggest you read the research yourself (which is very impressive). Or, come for a free consult so we can talk about your specific situation and answer questions.
Give any seizure patient the chance to try neurofeedback. If it works, it’s impact can be quite life changing for a seizure patient.
History of reducing seizures with neurofeedback.
Neurofeedback was discovered during an experiment with cats. Initially the cats did neurofeedback to show they could train their brain (they could).
In a later experiment, the cats whose brains were trained had greatly reduced seizures after they were exposed to a chemical vs. normal cats with no brain training.
Shortly after that, some labs starting training people who had seizures. There have been over 18 studies that show that seizures are often reduced by brain training.